


Long Talk on a Dark Night

by viole



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Angst, Broken Hearts, Dialogue Heavy, Feels, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Oneshot, POV Victor, Party Blues, Pre-Slash, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:03:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viole/pseuds/viole
Summary: Victor dances with Vanessa at Dorian Gray’s ball (because why wouldn’t you dance with her, you little prick? xP get yourself together and look after your friends!) and they elaborate a little more on the complexities of his uh … love life. Largely canon-ish because the series rocks.Pretty huge spoilers for Season 2 and 1. Also it helps if you’ve read Mary Shelley’s original “Frankenstein” for a bit more of Victor’s backstory.





	Long Talk on a Dark Night

“Cold.”

Victor dances with Vanessa. It’s good to have something to do, though every step hurts and burns. Vanessa's face, too, for all her brightness and composure, reflects all too well how the shame is distorting his expression. 

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Doctor, please. You’re squeezing my hand too much...”

“My apologies, Miss Ives. I am in the foulest mood…”

“Why, how considerate of you to say so. I can barely tell the difference from your usual temper.”

Victors smirks, unwillingly. “Miss Ives, you are being cruel on purpose. I doubt it has escaped you what I was confronted with. I have half a mind to leave before she can even grasp how utterly mad I am.”

“If you pour out my heart to me, you won’t be worrying about saying the wrong things to her. Or do you want me to distract you?”

“No, please don’t. I cannot be bothered with trivialities now. I am certain someone else in the world has it worse than me, but at this moment I wish nothing but to drown in my own misery.” Victor rolls his eyes. “These ghastly portraits looking down on me, like a crowd laughing…”

“This was an unsettling room before you entered. It is not you who they are adressing.”

“How could I ever dream that I could be that lucky? That this evening would not end like this! What made me think…?”

“Just focus on the dancing, doctor.”

The dance is not as challenging a task that it would occupy enough of his concentration, and his careless senses begin to slide. 

His eye cannot help but be caught by Miss Angelique, the odd paradise bird who was meant to be the centrepiece of this absurd exhibition. Despite being consumed by his own anguish, it additionally hurts to look at her standing behind with a drink in her hand, too proud to do more than pout adorably and wait for the dance to end. Mr Gray must be an exceptional kind of villain, Victor thinks, dragging her to this ball and rendering her this vulnerable to the mercy of so many people who wouldn’t be caught dead talking to her.  
  
“Will you reveal to me what you meant by ‘cold’?” Vanessa asks, cheerfully. Her eyes turn to the side, in Miss Frankenstein’s direction.  
  
She must have noticed how her skin feels. She does not know the details of what happened, but she has excellent instict. Victor would not consider it impossible that she sees farther than he does. Regardless what words he decides to choose, it’s unwise to tell Vanessa anything else than the truth.  
  
“I believed I could create a connection to what I truly wanted,” he replies. “There were many factors that I did not consider, factors that interfered in terrible ways, but I believe what I truly intended manifested itself all the same. I am not certain whether I am experiencing a tremendous disappointment or merely realizing I formed an affiliation with her that was cold and calculated to begin with.”  
  
“I suppose that is possible,” Vanessa says. “The two of you appeared magnificent to me, but it seems I too was not fit to judge. It is all too easy watching a happy person, a happy couple, and wishing the same for yourself, while in truth you can never know, much less reproduce what it is that makes their relationship work – or fall apart. Not to mention even the most fortunate bond is always subject to change.”  
  
“It seemed so clear,” Victor continues. “it made sense that I would only experience love in the only way acceptable for me: a subject formed by me, controlled by me completely. A creature loved by me would behave the way I expected, because it was my doing, my choice. I do not understand how I could have been so misguided, why both my feelings and intellect seemed to steer me in the same, clear direction, only to leave me there alone, lost and wrong.”  
  
Vanessa is silent. She does not have the sympathetic look on her face either, the one that makes Victor feel like a wild, unsociable animal that she happens to know how to feed, priding herself on that special ability, which he is able to overlook because he still enjoys her company.  
  
“Is it always like this?”  
  
“More often that I would like to tell you. I cannot blame you for approaching love in a scientific manner: the harshness between people is much harder to bear.”  
  
“And about choosing wrong? Choosing someone meant for another, while…?”  
  
“Please do not tell me that it is me you meant to choose, doctor.”  
  
“I cannot consider myself that fortunate, Miss Ives.”  
  
Victor appreciates her attempts to lift his spirits, but his inexperienced emotions are not acquainted for this turmoil of confusion and hate.  
  
“All the signs were there, that the experiment, as many others before it, would not turn as planned. Yet I ignored them, distracted by the novelty of it, the passion with which I pursued it, the unwillingness to accept failure…”  
  
“Was she really your cousin?”  
  
“El… Lily? Yes. No. We were not related. She was my parent’s ward.”  
  
“Does Miss Frankenstein look like her?”  
  
How could he describe Vanessa what he did: that ‘Miss Frankenstein’ looks the way she does because he changed her, physically and profoundly, and that she still does not look right, or anywhere close to what he seeks? Did he want to awaken a memory, to make up for time lost, to fix a life long gone, to redeem his unreasonable guilt, or merely satisfy his own curiosity? Neither Brona, nor Lily are his, none of his creatures ever were. She certainly is not Elizabeth.  
  
“No. No, she doesn’t.”  
  
“Then there must be another reason for her,” Vanessa says, her eye now twinkling again, but not with amusement. “Maybe you were never wrong, doctor. Maybe you are in another place, a step closer, or a step too far – but not wrong. Maybe it is your choice that matters after all, and love is indeed a riddle you are about to solve.”  
  
Victor feels torpid; their dance is mellow, but the room is still spinning.  
  
“I took her away,” he says weakly, wondering if Vanessa can even hear him. “That was at least something that I could reproduce sucessfully. Like Elizabeth was torn away from me, like Lily took Mr. Gray away from Miss Angelique.”  
  
“Who did you take her away from?”  
  
Even that he cannot answer, when he is suddenly reminded that he took her away from more than one person.  
  
“I am sick of chasing,” he says instead. “The wrong idea, the wrong person, I don’t want them to control me. I do not want to be wrong.”  
  
The dance ends, and each of them must turn back to face their own terrors. 

...............

Victor returns to Grandage Place, alone, in the early hours of the morning. Ethan is in the kitchen with Sembene, who nods at Victor and leaves.  
  
Ethan looks strange: he is vibrating with inner energy, but at the same time seems worn and sad.  
  
Victor regrets he was not here last night. Instead of squandering away his courage and putting his emotional peace at stake for a useless carnival, he could have been working. He has been attempting to ask some things about Brona for a while, but could never find a way to do so without provoking Ethan’s suspicions. If Ethan has had a sickness during the evening, taking care of him would have presented the perfect opportunity to talk about how Brona has affected both of them and to seek information he could use to make her function better.  
  
Now is certainly not the right time for a talk. He can barely remember the questions, or whether they were all that important. 

“How was the dance?”  
  
“You should have been there.”  
  
A faint smile lights up Ethan’s tortured face. “You wanted me to be there, doctor?”  
  
“It was your playground.”  
  
“Give yourself some credit." Ethan says. "You look good in the shirt.”  
  
He walks to the kettle and hands Victor a cup of tea before he pours one himself. There is no shaking in his hands, just careful movements. His mood seems to recover slowly, and Victor himself feels much more comfortable than he did during the entire night, standing in the dim, quiet kitchen in his white shirt and bowtie.

"Did you accompany Vanessa?" Ethan asks.

"I was not her escort, but I spent most of the evening with her due to unexpected circumstances."

"Good," Ethan says, reaching out at a distance and briefly squeezing his shoulder. Even through the clothes, the heat of his hand makes Victor tremble.

Warm.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I worship Angelique? <3 The only thing questionable about her is her taste in men. The ball in S2E6 was in conclusion a sad show, but I still was getting a kick that my two top favorite PD characters (Victor and Angelique) actually had some random screentime together <3 Sorry Ethan, you come in next xD


End file.
